You Likely Have 10,000 Freeloading Insect Roommates In Your House

No matter who you are and no matter how much you clean, here's what you should know: you probably have 10,000 bugs in your house, if not more. This is probably a nightmare for Howard Hughes types, but it's unavoidable. And mostly harmless.

A survey of 50 homes in Raleigh, North Carolina turned up the bug census count, finding anywhere between 32 and 211 species in those homes, and collecting the massive number of specimens big and small from every nook and cranny. Many of them lived in furniture, and many more were so tiny you've probably just never noticed them.

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The results of the census were published in PeerJ, an open access journal. The study is believed to be the most comprehensive study to date, and while confined to Raleigh, it's likely representative, in general, of the headcount of tiny louts, spiders, and other species hiding in your couch cushions, living in your books, sleeping in your cellar, and feasting on some of the other specimens, all outside your view.

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